As recounted within
the London Bridge section, Bricklayers Arms, which ultimately became one of the
largest motive power depots on the South Eastern Division, began life as a
terminus station. As a temporary measure to starve the L&GR of line usage rents,
the SER and L&CR had received Royal Assent on 4th July 1843 for the construction
of a spur which avoided the L&GR lines and London Bridge. Built under the
auspices of the ‘’Bricklayers Arms Extension Railway’’, the station site was
reached by a lengthy wooden viaduct, and came into use on 1st May 1844. Although
inconvenient for those passengers bound for the City or West End of London,
Bricklayers Arms succeeded in the capacity it was intended for: existing as a
threat to the L&GR. The company was now at the mercy of the SER, and at midnight
on New Year's Eve, 1844, the latter took out a £45,000 a year lease of the
former.

London Bridge may have reassumed its status as the SER’s main terminus in the
capital as a result of the lease agreement, but it was not the end for
Bricklayers Arms (which took its name from the local pub). Since the opening of
the ‘’temporary’’ station here, goods facilities had always been a significant
feature, and indeed, with the cessation of scheduled passenger services in 1852,
these could now be further expanded. Moreover, months before the SER took out
its lease on the L&GR, the company had already opened the first engine shed
here. Continued expansion of the site under the SER provided no less than three
engine shed structures, all of which accommodated four tracks each, and two of
which were through affairs. Of the latter pair, these measured 270 feet and 210
feet in length and comprised one and two pitched roof sections respectively, of
iron girder construction (these of which were very similar in appearance and
construction to the trainshed formerly in existence at Deal). These would appear
to be the buildings of 1844 origin. The third shed building, the longest of them
all at 380 feet, was evidently a contemporary of the first four-road depot built
at Ashford, for it was of all brick construction, demonstrated a single pitched
roof for the whole of its length, and was frescoed with near identical brick
patterning. However, despite Ashford being the home of the SER’s main works, its
shed was considerably shorter than its counterpart at Bricklayers Arms,
stretching for a length of 215 feet. Bricklayers Arms had sub sheds under its
wing at Woolwich Arsenal and Deptford, the former having come into use with the
North Kent Line in 1849, the latter being an original L&GR creation. They were
joined on the sub-shed list by the five-road Cannon Street semi-roundhouse in
1866, which had opened with its namesake terminus, although was situated on the
opposite side of the Thames to the platforms. In the meantime, the LB&SCR had
also come on the scene, opening its own ‘’Willow Walk’’ goods depot along the
Bricklayers Arms spur in 1849. This remained as a wholly independent operation
from the SER site, and amalgamation did not occur until nearly a decade after
Grouping.

Bricklayers Arms’ status, at least on paper, was dealt a blow on the formation
of the SE&CR in 1899; the LC&DR’s main engine shed at Stewarts Lane became the
principle depot of the whole SE&CR network. Subsequently, it also lost its
sub-sheds at Deptford and Woolwich Arsenal in 1904 and 1905 respectively, these
closing on the advent of station rebuilds. Indeed, these small sheds had become
obsolete with the commissioning of the sizeable depot complex at Slade Green in
October 1899. The semi-roundhouse at Cannon Street had so far experienced
considerable activity since its 1866 inception; a confined site, it had come in
particular use for the SER’s tradition of reversing services from Charing Cross
into the City terminus. Such engine manoeuvres had justified the provision of
two turntables, one of which naturally served the roundhouse, the other of which
was situated on the opposite side of the entry tracks. It would appear to be the
SE&CR’s perpetuation of the SER’s Charing Cross service reversals which saw
Cannon Street shed avoid closure during SE&CR suburban improvements around the
turn of the century, other sheds on both SER and LC&DR lines having succumbed
during this period.

The Grouping brought significant improvements to the shed and goods yard complex
at Bricklayers Arms, despite the rapid electrification of ex-SE&CR suburban
lines under Southern Railway auspices. Regular scheduled third rail operation
commenced to and from Charing Cross on 28th February 1926, the North Kent Lines
becoming ‘’live’’ for the first time in May of that year – Orpington had
received third rail in the previous year, by means of Bickley Junction. The
electrification did ensure that Bricklayers Arms lost its last sub-shed, Cannon
Street, the semi-roundhouse being flattened in 1926, its site partly being
reused by a now familiar SR red-brick electric sub-station. By this time, the
large suburban locomotive depot at Slade Green had been converted for EMU
storage, and a then new heavy repair shed built to the south of the original
brick building. As far as Bricklayers Arms was concerned, the first major
alterations occurred in 1932, involving the amalgamation of operations of both
ex-LB&SCR and ex-SER goods depots at the site (the former being the
aforementioned ‘’Willow Walk’’). The following year was an interesting one, for
it marked the opening of a wholly new depot within the triangular section of
land at Hither Green. The shed here shared a significant characteristic with
that at Bricklayers Arms: it was principally a freight depot, and later became
home to numerous elderly SE&CR designs. The fact that freight haulage was
reflected within both sheds’ locomotive fleets ensured that engine exchange
between the two depots was frequent.

In 1934, the SR instigated a programme whereby Bricklayers Arms would become the
main South Eastern Division base for undertaking heavy maintenance and repairs
on engines, large and small. Indeed, complete locomotive overhauls on this
section of the SR’s network would still be dealt with at Ashford, which itself
had received a brand new prefabricated concrete engine shed in 1931, but still
utilised works buildings of SER origin. Subsequently, a large repair shop
appeared at Bricklayers Arms, immediately to the north of the 380-foot
brick-built engine shed. It was fed by two independent single-tracks, one of
which emanated from the quite enormous turntable (designed to accommodate the
largest of engines) situated to the north west of the through-affair engine
sheds. Speaking of the latter, these structures were comprehensively modified by
the SR in the 1930s, and by 1937, the 270-foot long engine shed had seen its
pitched roof wholly rebuilt to exactly the same style as that which had featured
at Hither Green Depot since its inception. The roof at Stewarts Lane had been
similarly treated in 1934. With reference to the 210-foot long shed at
Bricklayers Arms, this saw its roof rebuilt in the style still in existence on
the surviving depot building at Tunbridge Wells West. These improvements were
nearly undone during World War II, when bombing raids delivered significant
damage to the area.

After passing into British Railways ownership, Bricklayers Arms, like Hither
Green, remained almost exclusively as a freight depot, but it still supplied
engines for the small number of steam-hauled passenger services which remained
at the ex-SER termini. The Kent Coast Electrification and the dieselisation of
the ‘’Hastings’’ line eliminated the final such steam diagrams, but of greater
threat to the freight steam types at both Bricklayers Arms and Hither Green was
the BRC&WC’s Type 3 (Class 33) diesel, the first of which had arrived at the
latter on 4th December 1959. This diesel type soon began replacing steam on
freight diagrams, and the year in which the last was completed – 1962 – also
marked the closure of engine shed facilities at Bricklayers Arms. Both Ashford
and Stewarts Lane remained open to steam traction for merely a year more.
Although steam had now disappeared from Bricklayers Arms, goods traffic
certainly had not. Furthermore, parcel traffic was concentrated on the site from
1969 onwards, mostly as a result of the closure of Southwark Depot in that year,
this of which had handled such traffic since 1960. Like Hither Green,
Bricklayers Arms managed to retain a working turntable beyond the steam era, it
being a 65-foot example. This, a proportion of the original site structures, and
numerous goods sidings, remained in regular use until the depot’s ultimate and
final end; the whole Bricklayers Arms branch from North Kent West Junction was
taken out of use in 1981, and the whole depot site was subject to redevelopment.